What's the difference between a good story and a bad one? And the answer is: Using certain key elements in powerful and emotional ways! I'm talking about those key elements that have to do with emotional identification and clarity.

Of course we all realize how important emotional writing is.... right?

Try reading a book written without emotion... it is very boring and dry, like reading a grocery list, a great to put your reader to sleep.

So, what's the secret of infusing

emotion into your story?

Well, it's not easy, it's not like sticking in a few exclamation points here and there and underlining a word or two in your paragraph, although that could help a little.

The secret is to be emotional about

what you are writing!

Here's how: Some of the best written material, whether it is a novel, play, an ad, or a song, has been about something in that writer's life that has had a powerful effect on them. Of course we can't always be writing about things that have happened to us.

But we can... relate the story or article we are writing to something similar from our past or place ourselves in the story so we are feeling what the characters are feeling.

Another trick is to not only relate something in our past to the story, but then try to share these feelings and relate them to something that the reader has also experienced. Of course we all aren't psychics, but we can get a general idea of experiences that have probably effected most of our readers in some way.

Another method is to be excited ourselves about what we are writing. It is so much more effective to write in the midst of excitement than to to try to force something.

Just sleep on it!

This really works. You've been kicking around an idea for a story all day and not getting anywhere, but then you arise in the morning and there it is... the story is already written and right there in your head! And it is so much better than anything we could have written in our waking state!

Our unconscious higher self is much more creative than our waking self, plus we don't have to share the credit or the royalties! So let's take advantage of that inner self more often.

Plus we are so busy in our working state that we just don't listen to our inner voices, especially in today's world with all those noisy electronic gadgets. Sometimes those inner voices will even shout at us, but since so many folks don't believe in them, we ignore them.

How about you? Do you believe in them? We all, even me, have a tenancy to scoff at people when they talk about things like that. But I've had a number of experiences that tend to make a believer out of me.

Let me share me share one personal

experience with you:

A number of years ago I was living in Bethel, CT, right outside of Danbury. It was a rainy evening as I was heading home from New York City. Going up the Saw Mill Parkway towards I684.

In case you haven't experienced it, the Saw Mill is a narrow twisty parkway, but in spite of that, most people try to speed along it.

When you get to Pleasantville, the home of the Readers Digest Headquarters, you unexpectedly hit some stoplights. That particular evening I was stopped at the first traffic light and in the right lane.

And I heard this powerful voice in my head telling me to get into the other lane. As I paused to make some sense out of all this, it was quickly followed up by an even louder and forceful “NOW!”

So who was I to argue? I had just finished pulling over in the other lane a moving forward a little, when I heard a screech of tires as a speedy care was turned almost sideways trying to stop.

He did end up stopping without hitting anything, but coming very close to the care that was in front of me before I moved, yes that speeding care ended up right where I had been sitting just seconds earlier.

This experience made me a little more receptive to listen to those voices in my head! As a little follow up to this: When I arrived home about thirty minutes later, my wife came out to the garage all upset, saying she had this powerful feeling, about thirty minutes earlier, that I had been in an accident!

P.P.S. Also checkout my four copywriting eBooks listed in the right column of this page. Even if you have no interest in copywriting, you just may find some powerful ideas in there to help with your book writing. Or maybe you might want to try your hand at working as freelance copywriter until your book hits No. 1 on the best seller list! Also my Copywriting Headlines and Copywriting Words eBooks may prove to be a great boost to the quality of your book writing. Sure, I'm trying boost sales of my copywriting books, but my main concern is to be as helpful as possible to your writing efforts!